Quiet cooling

FrederickDavies

FrederickDavies

FrederickDavies

Associate
Joined
14 Feb 2013
Posts
13
Dear OcUK,

I am not sure this is the right Forum for this question, but since overclockers are likely to know more about cooling than anyone else, here it goes:

I am building my new system; it is going to have a Intel Core i7 3970X Extreme Edition but it is NOT going to be overclocked. I want to make sure this CPU will be cooled quietly (and I mean quietly: the machine will be in my living room under a table, and I do not want anyone even to notice it is there). I have no experience with water cooling, but if this is what is necessary, I will try it. What do you recommend I go for?

Thank you for your help.

Yours,

FD
 
There is no reason to go water cooling if all your after is to make your PC silent as its expensive and all in one coolers are often very loud at times. The fact that your not over clocking your system gives you a lot of options. The fans you choose for the heat sink will effect noise far more than the heat sink itself.

Have you got a case already? If you do what is it? The right case can assist you in keeping noise to a minimum.
 
Avenged7Fold,

OK, but what are considered the best sinks and fans these days? Last time (a few years back) I got to notice that the choice of sink and fan can really make a lot of difference as to the noise and temperature. What are the recommended "bests" now. Last time I had to try three times until I got one that would cool and not deafen, and I'd rather not repeat that experience.

As for case I am debating between recycling a Cosmos 1000 I have from an old system or buy one of the new Cosmos II's. In reality I will just get what is needed (not going to spend £800 in a big processor and put it in a cheap case just for saving £50).

FD
 
The best air cooler imo is the noctua dh-14 so are the fans that come with it which you can buy individually. A lot of people by the fans to replace the ones in their cases as they are very quiet and have a high cfm (airflow).

closed water coolers are very quiet but I would never go water cooling for obvious reasons I just don't trust it.

The cpu coolers that come with CPUs these days (remember to get the cooler you have to buy a retail version of the cpu) are good enough if you are not overclocking but they are not as quiet as something like the noctua dh-14 or titan fenrir.
 
FrederickDavies said:
greenbrucelee,

Are we talking about the NH-D14? I cannot find info on the DH-14 that does not really refer to the HN-D14.

That thing is massive; isn't that going to conflict with the RAM?

FD
Click to expand...

Sorry typo, yes I mean the NH-D14. With some ram it does conflict I have corsair vengeance but its the low profile version as the heat spreader on the normal vengeance would get in the way but with normal ram it should not be an issue. The noctua site has a list of ram the is compatible and incompatible.

Also be aware if you have small hands like me it's a PITA to fit but the results are well worth it for good temps. My i2500k idles at 24 degrees c in the BIOS and 28 according to hardware monitor and real temp. At full load highest core is 67 whilst running IBT or 58 whilst running prime to stress the cpu.

When the cpu is at full load you heat a small whine from the noctua but nothing that would or could distract you.
 
Just another question: if instead of a Core i7 3970X EE, I used a Xeon E5-2687W (on an appropriate double-socket motherboard like the Asus Z9PE-D8 WS), would the recommendations change? Is the Xeon hotter or cooler than the Core i7 EE?

Thank for your help.

FD
 
My advice would be to buy the 3930K, its £350 less and only 200MHz slower, the premium is due to the 3970X's overclocking superiority, which you don't even want.

NB: I would take the 2687W over either if I had the cash (and actually needed an 8 core HT CPU), but yes it will generate more heat than a hex core.
 
Last edited:
Another question

The i7-3970X EE lists its compatible memory types to be up to DDR3-1600, but on the other hand a motherboard like the Asus Rampage IV Extreme lists them up to DDR3-1866 (non-overclocked). Will buying 1866 memory over 1600 be of any benefit?

Thanks for your help.

FD
 
OK, so I put the i7-3970X EE with the recommended Noctua NH-D14, an ASUS Rampage IV Extreme, 16GB or DDR3-1866 RAM, an EVGA nVIDIA GTX 680, 1 SSD and 4 HDDs in my old Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 case.

Idling the system on the BIOS, with the case open (both side panels removed) but no case fans running, the CPU temperature is 25C (ambient is 18C).
If I close the case but still run no case fans the temperature rises to 45C.
Running the case fans in a negative pressure configuration (bottom intake, top and rear exhaust) the temperature lowers to 38C.
Running the case fans in a positive pressure configuration (botton and top intake, rear exhaust) the temperature lowers to 34C.

Are these temps normal?

The problem is that running the 5 case fans the noise level is just too high. You were right, the Noctua NH-D14 cools very well while being quiet, but the effect is wasted due to the case and its fans.
The case fans are Noctua NF-S12B FLX with the normal 3-pin connectors, so they are no cheap noisy crap, but they do not modulate and are running at full all the time. I could buy PWM fans (4-pin) and hope the RIVE knows what to do with them, or is this a problem with the case and no matter what fans I put in it, it is going to be the same?

Thanks for your help.

FD
 
Assuming the fans are connected to the MB and not to the PSU via molex adapters, go into the BIOS and the hardware monitoring section and enable the Qfan option for the fans, set it to silent, this will run them at ~75% and ramp them up when needed. You should have 6 fan headers on the board? two should be for CPU and cannot be voltage controlled, the other 4 can. Of course it may not be enough as 75% of loud is still loud.

Assuming im reading it right your 5 case fans are: 2 front, 1 rear, 2 roof? in that case just unplug the ones in the roof to reduce noise while maintaining positive pressure and adequate airflow.
 
Last edited:
ubersonic said:
Assuming the fans are connected to the MB and not to the PSU via molex adapters, go into the BIOS and the hardware monitoring section and enable the Qfan option for the fans, set it to silent, this will run them at ~75% and ramp them up when needed. You should have 6 fan headers on the board? two should be for CPU and cannot be voltage controlled, the other 4 can. Of course it may not be enough as 75% of loud is still loud.
Click to expand...

There are actually two CPU fan headers (CPU_FAN and CPU_OPT) and 6 chasis ones (CHA_FAN 1/2/3 and CHA_OPT 1/2/3); all 4-pin ones.

I though the Noctuas were considered quiet fans.

I will try the Qfan thing.

ubersonic said:
Assuming im reading it right your 5 case fans are: 2 front, 1 rear, 2 roof? in that case just unplug the ones in the roof to reduce noise while maintaining positive pressure and adequate airflow.
Click to expand...

Actually in the Cosmos 1000 there are no fans at the front. I have 2 fans at the top, one at the bottom, one at the rear, and one over the disk caddies (this one does not do much but move air through the disks). The ones at the top are the ones that help the most for cooling the CPU as the blow directly into it.

FD
 
It turns out that Qfan was already enabled, but on 'turbo' profile. I have changed it to 'silent' on all fans and the noise level has reduced dramatically; fan speed is actually around half as before. The idle temperature has increased to 39C though. Is that temperature low enough to ensure that at full load it will not melt? What is a normal idle temp for the 3970X?


FD
 
Don't be so concerned with your idle temps, what they are now is fine, be more concerned with the highest temps your CPU reaches for the most intensive thing you do. Leave RealTemp running to show you this. Keep it below 80 and you will be fine.
 
I have run the RealTemp test and the maximum temp at 100% load was 80C on one of the cores (Core #0). Curiously, Core #2 was consistently 5-10C lower than the others.

RealTemp only shows 4 of the 6 cores, but Prime95 created 12 threads, so I assume that all the cores were tested.

During the test the fans roared back to life noisily, but at least I know the system is not going to melt.

Is this the best I can expect to get using air-cooling, or would a different combination of fans and/or case be quieter?

Thank you for your help.

FD
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom